


5 Minutes AD

by antiphrastic



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 06:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8787859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiphrastic/pseuds/antiphrastic
Summary: How  would Chloe react to seeing Lucifer's true face, anyway?





	

**Author's Note:**

> My take on how things could go, inspired by [this ask](http://qqueenofhades.tumblr.com/post/153346496204/hello-granny-i-saw-a-wonderful-post-on-reddit) to [qqueenofhades](http://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades) on tumblr.

There's no need for him to look up to identify the person sliding in next to him on the bench. He's been both anticipating and dreading this for days.

She's patient, though, quietly watching as his fingers dance effortlessly across the keys and if she guesses that the extended outro is a last-ditch effort to forestall the coming conversation, she doesn't say anything.

"Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it," she says, before the final note fully fades and Lucifer repositions his fingers for a new song. Instead, he takes up his cigarette, sees it's mostly ash, snuffs it out and sighs.

"I've been telling everyone for years. You lot just refuse to hear it."

"I want to understand, Lucifer."

"And I believe that you believe that, Detective. Truly, I do," he folds his hands into his lap and deflates. With his shoulders sagging he seems impossibly small, and it doesn't sit right with Chloe. Lucifer is larger than life, and that isn't what she's seeing right now. Hasn't been for weeks. "Experience has taught me that isn't the case, I'm afraid."

"You mean like with Dr. Martin?" She twists on the piano bench, trying to catch his eyes, but Lucifer is— _shock! surprise!_ —not cooperating. He keeps his gaze resolutely on the keys before him, as though he'd rather be playing than talking to her.

"You're still seeing her, so clearly she's handling it. I can handle it too."

"That? Wasn't anything I said. That was something I showed her." He lets a finger rest heavy on a key, the note ringing heavily in the air.

"Something you showed her.... Like what?"

" _Me_ , Detective," he finally turns his earnest eyes towards her, trying to impress upon her the weight of what he's revealing. Or rather, of what she is asking him to reveal. "I showed her me, unadorned. And then she went catatonic."

Chloe huffs through an exasperated grin. "Lucifer, I've seen you 'unadorned' before and I didn't go catatonic. And you've slept with Linda—"

"Mmm yes. Many times."

"—so she's seen you 'unadorned' many times, too."

"I don't mean naked," it's his turn to huff. "I mean without all the glamour."

"Fine. Then show me that. You showed Linda, you can show me, and so help me Lucifer if you make a show-and-tell joke right now I will not be held responsible for my actions."

The quip dies on his tongue. It's clear she won't be diverted, and he cannot understand why. As much as a part of him wants this, a larger part is uncharacteristically concerned with the consequences and would much rather she leave it be.

"Why are you being so persistent? This is a bad idea. Terrible, actually. All the evidence agrees with me."

"Evidence only you have seen is not evidence. It's hearsay." In other circumstances, he'd find the lecturing tone amusing, would try to rile her a little. But she continues more softly and with an earnestness he finds difficult to bear. "And I am being persistent because you are my friend, and I care about you, and I'm worried.

"I want to understand so I can help my friend feel better. Okay?"

"Always trying to serve the betterment of society, aren't you?"

"Just trying to be a good friend."

She won't let go. He's cornered and he can't see a way out that doesn't cause them damage. Keeping this secret—which, he muses, isn't really a secret since he's happily announced it to practically everyone he's met—is doing them both nearly as much harm kept as it will inevitably do revealed.

With a sigh, he repositions himself on the bench, straddling it so he can face her more squarely.

"Alright," he sounds defeated, and God but she never wants to hear him sound this way again. She blinks, confused when he takes her hands in his. "It has been a pleasure, Chloe. Truly."

"This isn't a goodbye, Lucifer. I'm not going anywhe— _oh my Go_ —"

"And then the catatonia. I'll understand if, once you've gathered your wits, you need to run. Don't worry about me. It'll only hurt a lot."

She wrenches her hands away from his, and his eyes drop closed. He steels himself for the inevitable fleeing, for the end of this era. Decides that's how he'll measure time now, to hell— _ha-bloody-ha_ —with that _Before Christ Anno Domini_ nonsense. They'll stand for _Before Chloe_ and _After the Detective_ , and maybe, if he's terribly lucky, a few thousand years will dull the ache of this rejection. Or better yet, it won't and he'll never forget that no one could ever want him as he is and won't be tempted to make this mistake again.

"I... what... you—" She starts babbling, her mouth opening and closing and opening again, much like a fish trying to force itself to breathe air, if slightly more charming for being Chloe.

"Well, you made it to gibberish at breakneck speed." That's it, he thinks, he's broken her. Amenadiel is right, he shouldn't have ever come here, all he can hope to do is terrify and damage everyone he meets. Probably was clever of Dad to kick him out when He did, before he could poison Heaven too.

"You're hurt."

He's jarred from his downward spiral by cool fingers pressing into his neck, and opens his eyes as Chloe's opposite palm tentatively cups his cheek. Her hands connect with warm flesh, and her brow furrows as her thumb brushes against the spot where—either a second or a lifetime ago—his cheek was fissured and raw. She pulls her fingers back, expecting them to come away bloody, but there's nothing there, and when she looks up at him she only sees the familiar face she's come to know. She runs fingertips carefully across his eyebrow, can feel the coarse hairs catching against her skin, but she knows what she saw—no, what he showed her—not quite: what she demanded he show her—he had looked burned or flayed or _something_ horrific her mind couldn't identify and he's just... sitting there, like marble, while she struggles to make sense of it.

"You're hurt," she repeats, and he lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He reaches out to wipe at her eye, catching tears against his thumb before they have the chance to fall.

"And you're crying," he answers sadly. Everywhere he goes, everyone he cares about. She wipes at her eyes without taking them from him, continuously scanning his face, searching.

"Show me again."

"I kno—pardon?" To say he is confused is to say that Hell is a touch unwelcoming—it doesn't really cover it. He is stunned into a silence, which must be a first of some sort, and stares quizzically.

"Show me again."

And how could he deny her, now?

This time, when she touches him, she doesn't feel healthy skin. There's a stickiness, like the feel of badly burned flesh weeping. Still, when she withdraws her fingers and looks at them, there's nothing there.

"Can we... I don't know? Put something on it?"

She's startled by a bark of genuine laughter, and meets his eyes—warm, soft brown ones because he's slipped back into his illusion. Re-adorned himself, or whatever.

"We'll just nip over to the pharmacy for some ointment, shall we? Dab some on?" It's flippant, but it draws a smile from Chloe. A small smile, one she isn't fully committed to, but something about this--about Lucifer's attempt at levity—puts her at ease enough to ask—

"But doesn't it hurt?"

The laughter fades from his face, and she would regret putting that look there because he's obviously having as difficult a time with her knowing this as she's having knowing it, but she needs to know.

"Only always," he replies, the intimacy of her hands still on his face suddenly overwhelming, so he takes them in his own, and moves them to a safer position between them. He doesn't let go, though.

"Don't worry, Detective," he tells her gently, "I hardly even notice anymore."

That did not have the soothing effect he intended because Chloe chokes on a sob and new tears well and it occurs to him for the first time that perhaps she isn't crying because of some human coping mechanism for the overwhelming discovery that her partner is the literal Devil and all its concomitant truths.

It occurs to him that she might be crying for _him_.

"Chloe, look at me, I'm okay." She quirks an eyebrow at him in a familiar, skeptical gesture, and he amends, "Alright, not really. But I'm… fine. Truly. No more worse for wear than ever."

She searches his face—she's doing a lot of searching right now, she can't help it, nothing makes sense, or maybe everything does—and she knows he's trying to put her at ease, to help her back into comfortable territory but _his face_....

"But how did this even happen? This is something that happened, right? You didn't always look like—"

"An over-boiled entrée at the All-You-Can-Eat Cannibal Buffet? No. This is what happens to angels after a prolonged absence from Dad. That's what Hell is, you know. The absence of God. It wounds us."

“ _Us_. Meaning _angels_. Because… because you’re an angel.”

“I don’t know if I technically qualify anymore, what with having got rid of my wings and all.” He says matter-of-factly, while she scrambles to update her understanding of facts.

“You told me about them, and I thought… I thought you meant…”

“I know what you thought. Even understand why you thought it.” He slides his tumbler across the top of the piano towards her. “I also understand if you’d like a drink.”

She doesn’t hesitate to pick up the heavy glass, although she doesn’t immediately take a sip, instead turning her searching eyes towards the amber liquor, watching the evidence of her unease rippling across its surface.

“I’ll even understand if you need to run away, if you never want to come back. I know how much this changes, well, everything.” He’s still being uncharacteristically still, as though he believes a sudden movement might spook her into the running he is so very afraid of, but his eyes follow her hand as she slams back the bourbon. “But I need you to understand something as well.

“I have never lied to you,” he tells her, wishing that she’d look up from the bottom of the empty glass, but knowing better—for a change—than to press his luck. “I’ve kept things to myself, but I’ve never lied. If this is it for us, Detective, if this is too much, just… know I never lied.”

“Really?” she asks, and he opens his mouth to answer the question he believes she’s asked but there’s steel in her spine and a glint in her eyes and she cuts him off before he can speak.

“You think you can get rid of me that easily? You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to separate me from another glass of this bourbon.”

The confused expression lasts mere seconds, before melting into something more familiar and licentious.

With a retort primed and ready to launch, he whisks the tumbler from her hand, reaches for the decanter and thinks, perhaps, that nothing significant has to change after all.


End file.
